Five Horses

Five

OK let's talk straight: I have five, you have five, everyone has five.

Really I mean it - this is no bluff.

But first things first. Farming is off right now. SIMPLE LIVING is closed due to antarctic weather in New Paltz. So this will be about HIGH THINKING stuff.
But don't worry, we'll try to make it as digestable as possible, till the new season starts.

Ok, back on track. Everyone has it: the dog, the cat, the bacteria - and I am more than certain that any kind of living entity in outer space Is having it - believe me they are there.
 

Five Senses

Why I am so certain? Someone who has seen the truth told me about it.
But that is another story. So, long story short. First of all, we're all having five senses through which we perceive the world. Too bad that they are pretty limited and faulty, which makes us pro-tone to commit mistake in any kind of endeavor.

The sixth sense

Actually there are even more senses. The sixth sense is the mind.
Most noteworthy is: it stands NEVER still and consists of feeling, thinking and willing.
Because of it’s unsteady and almost uncontrollable nature, we have to engage it constantly and learn how to train it properly. This is the duty of our seventh sense.

The intelligence. Everyone in the right association and under proper guidance, can train it in amazing ways, to dominate the mind, rather than being dominated by our feelings or will.

False Ego

Finally, sense number eight is called the “false ego”. Why “false”? Alright, first let me explain what it is. The feeling, thinking and willing that is being churned up on the pivot of the mind, can become under control of the intelligence - much like if these were happen to be three kids which are seated in a merry-go-round. Continuously turning.

The thinking, if it’s represented by a mature kid that uses his intelligence, can engage his thinking in a way that detaches from the dictate of his will, plus protecting “the real I” from being swayed away from the so often unreliable feelings.

Merry-Go-Round

The false ego is even more subtle and harder to grasp, as it is giving the kid, that represents the thinking in our merry-go-round, it’s designations and labels.
Exactly, the ones we got impregnated from early childhood:
I’m German, I’m small, I’m from a poor worker family, I’m strong, I’m this, I’m that.

As long as we identify with all these things so much that we act in a certain way that society is expecting us to act in a way we think we have to do, so that it befits the name and fame we are known for. Finally we are neither our intelligence nor our ego with which we identify ourselves.

Bhagavad-gita says in Chapter 6, Vers 34

The chariot of the body. Five horses represent the five senses (tongue, eyes, ears, nose and skin). The reins, the driving instrument, symbolize the mind, the driver is the intelligence, and the passenger is the spirit soul.

 

We are made of the spiritual element. Antimatter, NOT matter - spirit! Spirit Soul.

That is the main point - that we are really not that body. Not these feelings or our character, or thoughts.. NOT THIS BODY... which leads me to another magic five...

The five elements

Does anyone remember them? Earth, water, fire, air, ether.
Right, there is a specific order in it… From gross to subtle…
That's the same with our bodies. Everyone has five senses, seated on the five elements of which our gross, physical and subtle, astral body consists of.
We are not these material elements.

The living Spark - Spirit Soul

The soul is a very very fine and tiny thing. According to Srimad Bhagavatam,
a 10000th part of the tip of a hair. From it all consciousness spreads via the
bloodstream throughout the body and we can experience touch, smell, etc.

Just imagine what happens with such a small living spark, when it got covered with all the material elements... It got so mixed that it feels like it became one with the body. Forgets its own nature, its own purpose. Actually like it merged with the body.

For example we say:"Look at him, he looks so beautiful" - but that is only the body that looks beautiful. From childhood onwards, we are trained to feel, like we ARE this body. But once the body is of no use anymore, it has to transmigrate into another body-vehicle.

Surrender

There is one safe way to overcome this. As there is one spirit which everyone and everything is originating from and who possesses unlimited power. He is the owner of everything and we should try to figure out what is our relationship with him. The material elements are not controllable.
We make adjustments after adjustments, plan after plan, but we cannot control death nor becoming old. Better to surrender to something higher - or not something but the highest… In that way we break this vicious cycle of repeated birth and death.

What has all that to do with Farming

Farming needs continuously surrender. Repeatedly, everyday again.
It keeps us humble as Mother Earth is unpredictable and we have to put effort in any action that leads to an even uncertain yield. We need to work in cooperation with her

And she is acting according to the laws which are given by the Lord himself...

Personally, we are looking forward to continue with the endeavor of taking up this most noble profession of being farmer in the upcoming spring.
Simple living combined with a higher goal.
As it was becoming quite cold in New York, we took off, down south in our mobile home and wonder how this adventure will continue.
 

Farming provides an easy, not so much entangled lifestyle, opposed to a city lifestyle. The horses get not so much dragged away.

And next...?

Will the cows become pregnant?
Can we extend the already huge fence and will the deer remember all the good remnants they found there in winter?
Will we be able to plow the fields in time?
Can we cope up with the immense weed pressure?
How can we handle double the size of what we farmed last season...
What about our millions of flea beetle friends?

Master of the senses: HARIKESH

I could list many more questions, but now it's time for the mind to shut up - please Krsna guide us everyday anew. You are the real master of the senses and without your permission even any of the 5 elements cannot move even one inch.
Please give us the intelligence to never forget this and to satisfy your senses, which we simply have borrowed from you, Harikesh!!